THE NUMBERS DON'T LIE

From AlterNet:

6 Shocking Ways Conservatives Helped
Cause the Economic Destruction of America

It seems that you can look at a chart of almost anything and right around 1981 or soon after you'll see the chart make a sharp change in direction, and probably not in a good way. And I really do mean almost anything, from economics to trade to infrastructure to ... well almost anything. I spent some time looking for charts of things, and here are just a few examples. In each of the charts below look for the year 1981, when Reagan took office.

More here.

I spend a great deal of time here trying to debunk a lot of the conventional wisdom on economics. I would say "right-wing economics," or neoliberalism, or Reaganomics, whatever you want to call it, except for the fact that this point of view has come to totally dominate establishment thinking over the last thirty years. So it is now, and has been for some time, conventional wisdom. Almost always, I'm all about point by point explanations of how these conservative ideas simply have no real world correlation. That's why the above linked AlterNet quickie is so fabulous: it totally shuns argumentation and just looks at the numbers.

And, lemme tell ya, the numbers ain't pretty.

Like the excerpt says, virtually any way you look at it, neoliberal economics, which began its uninterrupted reign of dominance, through both Democratic and Republican Congresses and administrations, back when Reagan took office in 1981, have made this country a shitty place to live. We've gone from being a creditor nation to being a debtor nation. Personal savings have dropped to less than zero, while personal debt has skyrocketed. The already wealthy have seen their share of total national wealth increase dramatically, while everybody else has seen their share plummet. Economic growth, on average, has stagnated.

Click through the link and look at the charts. The numbers don't lie.

If anti-regulatory, pro-free trade, anti-tax, and anti-labor policies are so freakin' great, then why have three decades of neoliberal experimentation failed so miserably? I'm sure you can guess what I think.

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